Soldier, Weapon, Number, Human
by guineapiggie
Summary: "The man on the beach is shifting. Not long now and he'll open his blue eyes and look at him like he knows him, call him Bucky, James Buchanan Barnes, and that name, he almost – No, he's a soldier. He doesn't have a name, he has guns and knives and a mission and a number, a number on a file, семнадцать, seventeen, and that's enough. Anything else hurts far too much."


**Soldier, Weapon, Number, Human**

 **DISCLAIMER:** I don't own a thing, this was written for the purpose of entertainment only.

* * *

He doesn't know why, but there's a taste on his tongue and he knows it, he's tasted this before, he –

желание.

No. Wrong Language. English. He should know the English word, he does know it, and for some reason he feels like it should be the first one to come to his mind.  
Longing.

There it is. He –

He's not sure what he's longing for, it's something, somewhere, somewhere on the back of his head, somewhere on the bottom of the river he just climbed out of.

Something to do with the man he's just pulled out of it.

He turns back around, drops to his knees, scoops up a bit of water. He fills his mouth, the water's disgusting, spits it out, repeats.

The taste doesn't wash off.

It tastes... tastes...

ржавый.

Rusted. That's what it tastes like. Like blood.

Like old wet iron, like the bars the put around him, like the doors they've locked him behind, like - like panzers that roll over charred, burnt earth, France, Italy, Austria, they have swasticas painted on them and they're coming right towards him and he's scared but he's holding a machine gun, holding it with both hands because they're weak hands made of flesh and bone and they break so easily...

He doesn't know where that image came from, he doesn't –

He has to get away, he knows that, suddenly. He has to get away, he didn't finish the mission, he didn't finish the job, he had his orders and he didn't... He has to get away, or they'll come for him. He doesn't know what they'll do to him, but it's to do with a lot of white and blue and pain, so much pain, it'll explode in his head, in his whole body, in the arm he doesn't have. It never feels, this arm, the left, except for when he doesn't follow his orders. It hurts then like it is alive, like it is a part of him, like it is flesh and bone and like it can be broken.

He needs a change of clothes. He needs to get out of town, out of the country, this country that he feels like he knows but he doesn't.

The man on the beach is shifting. Not long now and he'll open his blue eyes and look at him like he knows him, call him Bucky, James Buchanan Barnes, and that name, he almost, _almost_ –

Shut up. Stop. No further.

He knows not to go there, after... how many years has it been? No matter, he knows not to go there, he doesn't go there, he can't.

Don't go where it hurts.

 _(Yes, coward, avoid the pain. That's how you train a rabid dog.)_

Shut up. Stop. No further.

He's a soldier. He doesn't have a name, he has guns and knives and a mission and a number, a number on a file,

семнадцать,

seventeen, and that's enough. Anything else is too much, too far, it's bad, it's dark and cold, oh so cold...

Shut up now.

He gives the man a little kick into the head, digs his foot into his blonde hair, just hard enough so he won't wake up and come after him. He's not sure why, but he doesn't want to kill the man...

 _Steve, his name is Steve._

Shut up!

Where can he go? Where won't they find him?

Not North America, he can't stay here, not Africa, he'll stick out like a sore thumb, not Asia, it's too close to them, to Russia, South America might work for the time being, he needs to cover his traces, Eastern Europe might be the best, he looks the part, he speaks the languages, plus it's a chaos down there, he might disappear there for a while...

.

* * *

.  
Twelve hours later, he's standing in the desert, the stolen car parked on an abandoned road. The sun is coming up, and there's streaks of red and blue across the sky like splatters of blood, splinters of the man's eyes, blue and sad and old, too old, he knew that man, he –

 _Steve, his name is Steve._

SHUT UP!

He stares at the sky, darkness fading, dropping from the sky, the night is over.

рассвет.

Brand new day.

He wishes he could swim to Mexico. He isn't used to this heat; he wouldn't mind the cold.

It's so hot, and the stolen clothes stretch over his arm, the seams will burst soon and it'll reflect the sunlight, someone will see, he's got to be fast. There's sand in his mouth, sand and rust and at the tip of his tongue there are so many names, so many secrets, he can't spill them it'll hurt but he –

Shut up. You gotta get out of this печь or you'll just melt, you're not made for the summer. You were born in the cold, you are cold, you're winter, they told you...

He's got to be fast now, and wherever he ends up, he can't get cozy, he can't stay too long, just, maybe...

девять.

Nine, that's the word, nine weeks tops.

.

* * *

He turns on the television the next time he breaks into a stranger's apartment like a common criminal, sets the stolen clothes on fire in the bathtub, steals new ones.  
It's on the news, they don't mention him, but that means nothing. The red-haired one is on the news, too, they say her name is Romanoff so she might be from Russia; and the man, the man with the blue eyes...

 _Steve, his name is Steve._

Stop.

 _You've known me your whole life, he said, I'm not going to fight you, you're my friend, your name is James Buchanan Barnes..._

SHUT UP!

He can't go there, he can't go where there's so much pain, he mustn't –

It's easier when he doesn't know, this thing at the back of his head that he's longing for ever since he saw the blue of those eyes, the thing is not...

Not доброкачественный.

Not good for him, how can it be when it hurts so much...

 _He_ is _, Steve_ is _, I know it, I –_

Stop.

He knocks out a tourist in an alley way in Mexico City, a white guy with dark hair and light eyes and a clean name and a polish passport. He's careful not to kill him, he doesn't want to kill people, he –

Stop. You're a soldier, a number, a weapon, you do as you're told.

 _No, I don't, they can't find me, they'll come with lightning and pain, I don't belong to them, I'm not a weapon, it's just my arm that's metal, the rest is still there, flesh and bones, it can still be broken, I'm not a number, I've got a name..._

SHUT UP!

.

* * *

.  
All of a sudden there's something, a dream he's had, they tried to kill it with all their pain but it's still there, hidden, but it gets back out sometimes, he dreams, dreams of...

возвращение домой.

They used that word too, they think that he'll come home to _them_ but it's not home, they hurt him there.

You don't have a home, you're a soldier, a number, a weapon.

The man is back on the news.

 _Steve, his name is Steve_.

He thinks he has to do with it, the blue, it's connected, that shade of blue and home, it's to do with it or at least it used to, he –

.  
Krakow is good for now, he decides. Big enough, poor enough, he speaks the language, he looks the part. He's bought books, on memory. There was a comic in the store, there was a man on it in a familiar suit with a shield bearing the US-flag and it looks like an old poster and he thinks he's seen it before.

The book says plums are good against Alzheimer's, he knows that's not what he has but he doesn't _know_ what he has so he figures it can't hurt to try. They're growing on him, too, the plums, it's a nice routine to have, his two plums in the morning.

Routine is good, he hasn't had that for a long time, or he thinks he hasn't, everything is still so blurry…

He's bought a notebook, too, maybe if something comes back he can write it down. He goes back to the bookstore, buys the comic and a glue stick. Back in his shabby room he rips out the front page, the one that looks like a poster. Takes a pen and numbers the pages, glues it into the notebook.

Один.

First page. He knows it's important. He doesn't know why just yet, but it's important, he knows it is, he just has to –

.

* * *

.  
It's another month before something comes back.

It's freezing in Belarus.

That's good, good for you, you're cold, you're winter, you're almost home…

 _No, I'm not, it's not home, I'm not going there!_

He risks a lot, getting so close, but they won't look for him here, at least not for a while.  
He thinks the cold is what brought it back.

He's fallen asleep at his table, bent over his notebook, and snow is piling up on the window sill outside. The cold seeps into the room through the thin cracked pane, the glass of water on the table is turning to ice.

He's not a quiet sleeper, he knows this now, he's having nightmares, almost broke his wrist one night when he fell out of bed thrashing and screaming. He's sleeping on a mattress on the floor now, it's safer.

His dream is all blue lightning and pain and what wakes him is the fall. He opens his eyes just in time to see the floor speeding towards him, and then just before he crashes face first into the floor boards, he –

Mountains, covered in snow, wind tearing at his body, at his short hair, the muscles in his arms feel like they're being ripped apart, they're all flesh and bone, they break so easily... there's the man with the blue eyes, full of desperation...

 _Steve, his name is Steve._

He holds out his hand, stretches it towards him so violently he wouldn't be surprised if it just ripped off, but it's too late, the metal rips off, it's rusted, it doesn't hold and he's falling off the... off the...

грузовой вагон.

Freight car, that's what it's called, and Steve's eyes are spilling sky blue and desperation and denial and pain, so much pain, and he can hear his voice, breaking, fading, he's calling for him, he's calling his name...

 _"BUCKY!"_

It hurts, it hurts, so much more than his jaw does from the impact on the wood, but he clenches his fists and endures it, he needs to hold on to this it's important it's so important, it's where it all started, he knows, he –

He _remembers_.

* * *

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